I started using Steinberg software since when I got an Atari 1040ST in 1986. I had a whole megabyte of memory and I had built in MIDI ports. (Big deal at the time)
In 1999 was over my love affair with Apple so deiced to use Cubasis on a PC. I bought a midi cable for my PC and it came with Home Studio 8. I had a very minor problem and called the tech support and was blown away with Cakewalk’s service. (I still am till this day, it is second to none!)
I later upgraded to Home Studio XL 2004 but still kept using the Steinberg because I was so used to it. I found myself playing with Cakewalk FX in Cubase. I received an email offer to upgrade to the Sonar 4 and took advantage of it. I bought mainly for the effects and because Sonar it supported OMF files. A few months later I upgraded from Studio 4 to Producer 4 but I still was using Cubase. I liked Sonar but was afraid to jump. I researched and studied Sonar and even read a couple books.
My reluctance to switch was based on my heavy usage of VST instruments. I primarily work on Christian and Southern Gospel Music with a fair amount of orchestration. I would guess 75% of my tracks are sample based with live instruments and vocals. Often projects are sent to Nashville to be mixed. Nuendo is used widely around Nashville so using Cubase worked well. I had been using some form of Steinberg for almost 20 years so it wasn’t an easy decision to switch.
Then Sonar 5 came out with 64 bit processing and native VST so I decided it was go time. I pulled up some tracks I had previously mixed put them in Sonar and I couldn’t believe my ears. There was a sonic difference. I have used Sonar ever since!
I run a commercial studio and I have a project studio in my home as well. I run Sonar in both and I have had no problem when people come in with ProTools projects. I am more than happy put Sonar to the test against the other inferior software. No one has ever said, “Let’s keep it in ProTools.”
I live a couple hours away from Nashville and I am seeing the Digidesign stronghold slowly melting with the myth of the invincible Apple OS. I would love to see this market developed for Cakewalk. The partnership with Roland could be an asset in making this come to fruition. Hardware wise 16 channel AES cards, 192 ADDA converters and even a DSP card for effects are at the top of my wish list! Imagine Sonar power harnessed by Roland. Music City is home to allot of musicians and allot of different genres. With the Cakewalk’s METAlliance partnership and the Nashville influence a couple of those guys have Sonar could make some serious inroads. They are already endorsing AMD!
Sonar is the best choice for me and the music I work on. It might not be the “industry standard” but remember a standard is what others are measured against. Sonar measures up quite handily to say the least.

I have not posted here in years - I left off using Sonar 5.2. In the meantime I went Intel-Mac, only to be plagued with problem after problem with the Macbook Pro. I used Logic & Pro Tools. Pro Tools sounds magnificent, but ruins the hardware config of the computer it uses, and thus ruins everything. Logic was some comfort since I missed Sonar. But the Audio side of Logic sucked.

BootCamp was another nightmare completely. Run Windows on a Mac - BFD. The novelty wore off after the fans and the extreme heat on the MBP would not quit under Windows XP SP2.

I was fed up with it over the weekend and went on an archeological dig.

So now I am back on my 4year old Dell Inspiron and LOVING IT! Fired up Sonar 5.2 and became enamored all over again. Looking forward to upgrading 5.2 in the VERY near future...what you can do with Sonar 7 looks impressive.

PS. Also missed all the great FREEWARE under Windows OS.

I started with G-Vox and discoved Sonar on version 2XL been a user ever since.
I'm a tech junkie so I've had Version 4, 5, 6 and now 7PE.
I would like to see some headway with the 64 bit rewire support in version 8.

I just record at home...not a pro at all...

I downloaded N-Tracks about 6yrs ago and was using it with decent success....

then I got chummy with a local music shop/studio owner. I started getting various recording and micing techniques from him. He basically showed me the light. He turned me on to Sonar and Soundforge. I bought Sonar HS4, but have since upgraded to Sonar 6 Studio.

The mix and headroom I get are great..and I'm still learning everyday!

My bandmates, friends, and bar owners are happy with the quality of the recordings as well.

I have used Sonar since Cakewalk 6 in 1997.

DAWs are necessarily like politicians. Sooner or later, I dislike all of them.

Cakewalk is no exception. I just dislike it less than Tracktion, CuBase, Acid, FL Studio etc.

I can rattle off the shortcomings of everything. FL Studio's recording interface isn't as accessible, Tracktion's MIDI editing isn't strong. Everybody besides Cakewalk is stuck with 32-bit application code.

I can also rattle off the advantages of other DAWs. FL Studio still has the best step sequencer. ACID has the best code for stretching audio witout distortion. Tracktion is the most user-friendly. Ableton is better for live improv.

At the end of the day, Cakewalk is the best of a very frustrating class of products.

My opnion so far: I came from using Pro-tools and Nuendo ans Cakewalk back in the 90s.

I got a copy of Sonar 6LE when I bought my Allen and Health Zed mixing desk. I'm giving it a try so here are my 2 cents worth:

a) Trying to understand all the different variations of the programmes ie LE, Studio, home, pro etc( very confusing).

b) Its look very powerful, but this makes simple task dificult at first.

c) Can't get all my midi gear working. So far I haven't written a single note because of USB audio, midi issues. ( I do understand that this is common when switching)

d) Your support either didn't recieve my email or choose to agnore it.

e) Where can I get an online manual(one I can print out)?

f) I'm hoping after the intial set-up I should be okay, but some online vids would really help new users A LOT.

I don't mean to be negative with my comments, but I'm finding the intial set-up quite frustrating and can't wait for everything to become second nature.

Cheers

Hi everyone. This is a great thread and an amazing way for everyone to compare different products and companies.

I made the switch from Cubase to Sonar 7 Producer Edition after having a terrible experience with latency on Cubase. I had the newest version of Cubase (about 2 months ago) and immediately uninstalled it from my hardrive when the damn thing kept giving me unnecessary latency issues.

I have an Intel quad-processor with 4 gigs of ram so there was absolutely no reason for me to have any sort of latency whatsoever. But as soon as I installed and recorded with Sonar everything worked out great!

Thank you so much for such a wonderful DAW!!!

I switch from Cubase SX. Also had a brief session with Samplitude 8 SE ( love the sound quality, but my soundcard doesn't work well with it ).
I like the workflow in SONAR better than Cubase, easier. More stable. And for the price lower then SX I got V-Vocal which make SONAR a really good package.

I was an analog studio engineer in the seventies and eighties. When I came to digital recording in 2001 someone pointed me at n-Tracks (http://www.fasoft.com) and I've stuck with it since. It's been a rocky journey - I've not found the product very stable - but we've recorded two albums of my music and a lot of other projects besides. I'm currently on the 24bit n-Tracks version with an M-Audio Delta 2496 card on XP.

But I'm now looking at moving away from n-Tracks - I need something a bit more robust, and something that will leverage the investment I've made in VSTs over the last seven years. In particular I have ongoing problems keeping recordings synchronised - the least change seems to require buffer settings and drivers to be set up all over again. All I want to do is make music!

It's a shame n-Tracks doesn't qualify for a competitive upgrade - if it did I'd go for Sonar 7. But I'm weighing up Pro-Tools M-Powered against Sonar HS. Any additional commentary on that match-up would be welcome.

Not quite the flagship version but I recently upgraded to Home Studio 6XL in the summer sale and I'm absolutely delighted with it.

I started off with Cubasis VST a few years back and then saw the light, working my way up through Cakewalk's Music Creator Pro 24, Guitar Tracks 2, Pro2 and Pro3.

Steve